


handsome as courtyard rain

by lonelyghosts



Series: you, yourself, your own [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (who is trans), Gen, Homesickness, Khalid von Riegan, Trans Claude von Riegan, Transphobia, ever think about how fucked up it is that claude, gender norms in the leicester alliance, has an anglicized name forced on him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyghosts/pseuds/lonelyghosts
Summary: Living in Fódlan brings with it waves and waves of culture shock. He has long since found a way to navigate their effects, but Khalid still, after all these years, finds himself taken off-guard by the ways in which his homeland was different, the ways that it wasbetter.
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril & Claude von Riegan, Judith von Daphnel & Claude von Riegan
Series: you, yourself, your own [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015026
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	handsome as courtyard rain

**Author's Note:**

> the title of this particular piece is taken from the last line of the poem 'the children of medea'. in full it is 'if there be electric chairs, let us sit upon them every person who forgot our names. we are more than symbols of that failed marriage; we had names once, handsome as courtyard rain.'

Living in Fódlan brings with it waves and waves of culture shock. He has long since found a way to navigate their effects, but Khalid still, after all these years, finds himself taken off-guard by the ways in which his homeland was different, the ways that it was _better_. 

He had thought, when he left the palace to claim his second birthright, that things in Fódlan would be better. That he would be free of the mocking that came about his bastard status, the ways that people curled their lip at his mother's mark on his shoulder. That in this place he would feel entirely at home in a way he had never quite felt in Almyra.

In the end it's worse, here. He sees the way the others turn their nose up at the hue of his skin, the way they sniff haughtily at the little braids in his hair that remind him of his father. They mock the way his hair never quite falls flat, the way his accent still lingers in some words. He grits his teeth at all of it, though it chafes and burns, the way the mirror opposite had hurt in Almyra. He trains his way through speech classes and burns for a chance to speak in Almyran again, to feel the round romance of each syllable, the lilt on his tongue. 

It's not as if he is completely alone. There are the various noble sons and daughters that he meets in the course of his introduction to the Leicester Alliance's nobility, and many of them are kind. There is Margrave Edmund's shy ward, who barely attends meetings and mostly corresponds by letters, which are written in a trembling hand and stop to apologize every five sentences. There's Lorenz, of course, who fights with Khalid at every opportunity and always comes to meetings with a haircut even worse than the one before. (Khalid wonders who his barber is, and why they seem to hate Lorenz so much.)

And of course there's Hilda.

Hilda Valentine von Goneril is pink-haired and always smirking and loves to tease; she is his best friend, and he is hers, in this foreign land where he has nothing familiar. She is one of the only ones who both knows that his boyhood was fought for and also does not look down on him for it. She doesn't entirely understand- she has never had to fight for her femininity- but she doesn't pretend to, either, and that's more than enough for him.

Khalid treasures her more than anyone else here in the Alliance. Their days together are happy and unburdened- she teases him about his penchant for books, his tendency to question anything and everything, puts beads in the braids in his hair. He sits on her bed at night as she paints her nails and tells him how she dreams of flying on the back of her own wyvern. He tells her that when they go to Garreg Mach together, they'll take flying classes, and they'll each have a wyvern of their own.

There are things that hurt more than anything else, though, things he had never expected to face. He had _known_ , to some extent, that the issue of his gender would be- different in Fódlan, to say the least, but he had not expected this- the way that nobles whispered about it behind his back, about how there was a child come to claim the title of Riegan, and all his many… _peculiarities._

He has to bind his chest, for one, something that makes him feel stifled and trapped. In Almyra he had never had to wrap the cloths around his chest, had been able to fly on his wyvern free and unbound and one with the wind. Here he itches and aches and has to take breaks from meetings early to go lie down and remember how to breathe, longing for nothing more than to return to listening to the war councils and learn more. He has so much to catch up on, so much left to learn and instead he lies on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and rubbing at the places where the bands bit into his skin. 

People laugh at the thought of a boy wearing an earring. Khalid has to restrain himself from yelling about how earrings were not gendered in Almyra, about how they were a sign of adulthood, how it signifies that he is not a child. Instead he twists the metal hoop in his fingers as they whisper behind his back and bites down on his lip until it bleeds. 

Perhaps the worst thing is his name. And that's not even because of the fact he's a man- it's just because they didn't want people to find out he was also Almyran, but goddess, he hates how it sounds to hear Claude and know that it's not a name he chose, the way he chose Khalid. Another name given to him against his will, a bastardized version of a name he made and fought for.

Over time, it stops hurting quite so much. He grows numb to the sound of those syllables, responds to them when they are spoken, even though he wishes for nothing more than to hear the sounds of his own name. He grows used to it, yes, but he will always remember- this name is not the one he chose.

Years later, he hears his real name again for the first time in more than a decade. The word comes from Judith's mouth, when she tells him how proud she is of him, and he can't help himself from hugging her. She doesn't mention it when he weeps into her shoulder- just pulls him close against her own flat chest and holds him, silently, as he realizes: he doesn't have to be Claude anymore. He can be Khalid again. 


End file.
